January 31, 2011 – 1:45 pm
Most travellers would have been surprised at today’s announcement that Jetstar Asia and Valuair are starting to codeshare with Qantas, because they would have assumed they always had. Qantas and Jetstar have codeshared on most of their routes since Jetstar began flying in 2004. The important question is why has this announcement really been made? [...]
January 30, 2011 – 11:12 am
The announcement of a new midfield terminal for Hong Kong airport is another painful reminder of planning policy failure at Sydney Airport. By 2015, and for around $900 million, the compact 1255 hectare sized Hong Kong airport will gain 20 more gates, at least three of them A380 capable, and capacity for an additional 10 [...]
January 28, 2011 – 8:23 pm
Two different success stories made news in Singapore this week. One is Jetstar, now Singapore’s biggest low cost operator, and the black hole around which dying star Qantas orbits, shedding mass in the form of asset transfers and the deeply inconvenient if not offensive costs of being an Australian ‘enterprise’ burdened by costly experienced pilots [...]
January 27, 2011 – 12:53 pm
Here’s something for Jetstar sufferers to get their heads around (apart from defective training standards, see previous item). In a deal just announced in Singapore oneworld alliance passengers flying economy who make connections from their full service airlines to Jetstar will continue on ‘selected’ flights to get meals and the same free baggage allowance as [...]
January 27, 2011 – 12:18 pm
An ATSB inquiry into an incident on a Jetstar A330 flying between Tokyo and the Gold Coast late in 2009 has uncovered a significant pilot training deficiency at Jetstar in relation to dealing with ice induced control system malfuctions on Airbus jets which the airline has now corrected. This is the abstract to the ATSB [...]
January 27, 2011 – 9:03 am
There is an astonishing amount of cr*p in the statements Air France has made about keeping secret the safety recommendations made by a panel of experts following the crash of AF447, an Airbus A332, with the loss of all 228 people on board, in the mid Atlantic on June 1, 2009. And the media cowardice [...]
January 27, 2011 – 8:19 am
Boeing resolved very few of the critical uncertainties about its 787 and 737 programs at its fourth quarter earnings conference call in the US this morning. It did however insist that when the first 787 Dreamliner is delivered to All Nippon Airways, somewhere between July 1 and September 30, and this year, it would be [...]
January 26, 2011 – 5:56 pm
There is something grievously wrong with the Qantas response to the frequency with which the Rolls-Royce RB211 engines fitted to its Boeing 747-400 fleet are failing. According to Qantas, in what is now a rut it has trodden about four times this month, the failures have nothing to do with the outsourcing of the heavy [...]
January 25, 2011 – 8:50 am
There are several terrible realities to keep in mind as reports of the bombing atrocity at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport confront travellers this morning. 1. Nothing is certain to prevent such attacks on public places, including railway stations, buses, pubs, rock concerts and sporting events, and 2. Commonsense situational awareness is of tremendous value in our [...]
January 24, 2011 – 6:01 am
With only four days to go before a major regularly scheduled investor briefing in the US, Boeing is rolling out more admissions of failure about the 787 Dreamliner program. This is the key section of a story on the Arabian Business site, quoting the companies President and CEO for Commercial Airplanes, Jim Albaugh, at a [...]
